Like this:

Trixie Belden awoke slowly, with the sound of a summer rain beating against her window. She half-opened her eyes, stretched her arms above her head, and then, catching sight of a large sign tied to the foot of her bed, yelled out, “Rabbit! Rabbit!” She bounced out of bed and ran out of her room and down the hall. “I’ve finally done it!” she cried […] “Well, ever since I was Bobby’s age I’ve been trying to remember to say ‘Rabbit! Rabbit!’ and make a wish just before going to sleep on the last night of the month. If you say it again in the morning, before you’ve said another word, your wish comes true.” Trixie laughed.”

Somewhere in my childhood – my life before junior high, say – I had started reading Trixie Belden, and specifically, this Trixie Belden, the one with the Rabbit/Rabbit chapter. Trixie says two ‘rabbits’; others say three rabbits…

And once I had read it, rabbits popped up everywhere….Flopsy Bunnies

Assorted Flopsy Bunnies from Beatrix Potter

Dutch bunnies

Durer – Young Hare

and Bugs Bunnys

This image is titled “The Bugs Bunny Classic”

Notice how I’ve avoid any reference to March Hares…..

There is one other rabbit, though.

Jolly Rabbit.

She was JR before Dallas and that JR….

When we were in junior high, we had secret code names…she was Jolly Rabbit because her initials were JR and I was Quail because, well, say kwall real fast – it makes it own sort of sense.

So on the first of the month, I always think of her, whenever I would finally clue in that it was in fact the first of the month…and now I have to remember that she’s no longer a phone call or Facebook message away.

So many of my Judith memories are connected to food – we enjoyed a lot of meals together – tuna sandwiches, and blueberry pancakes and blini and horseradish testing and experimental soups and and and and and…..

March is (was) her birthday month.

If you’re remembering someone, they’re still in the present tense, right? Even if they are no longer present?